Rake 'require' error on VPS

[ParkinT]

First, I have scoured the Internet for days and this problem is plaguing me. I need help from someone with Ruby on Rails experience on a VPS.

I have always developed rails apps on shared hosting. For the first time I have a "hands on" (physical) internal server I need to use for deploying a proprietary RoR app.

After installing Ruby, installing rails, installing MySQL, setting up Apache2 I have proven my Ubuntu Server is working as expected.
The command 'rails <appname>' worked perfectly.

Next I tried running rake.
I got this error:

/usr/bin/rake:27 'require' : no such file to load -- (LoadError) rake

Hopefully, you can guide me on how to overcome this stumbling block. It is the last thing that stands in my way to success on this project (which, of course, has a tight deadline).
{btw: the rake file is only 28 lines long. It simply calls this include then calls Rake.application.run }

Reading on the Internet, I see a change in Ruby 1.8.6 and Ruby 1.9 with respect to how gems are handled.
I was unsuccessful as installing Ruby 1.9 on this box. But I really don't believe that is the fix for my problem.

Thanks in advance.

[Arlen]

All I can think of is maybe your unsuccessful attempt screwed up the environment variables. It sounds like it's looking for something in the wrong place.

[ParkinT]

I had (have) Ruby 1.8.6 installed and working (irb VERSION verifes that).
My attempt to install 1.9 was an effort to fix this rake issue.
I agree that it appears to be a pathing issue. It was my hope that someone who has stumbled across this before has the magic answer.

Thanks for reading the post.

[ParkinT]

I am happy to report that I solved my problem.
It appears the solution was thus (although I have been doing many things. But even after a reboot it continues to work):
run the command (as root) $ usr/ruby/env to display the ruby environment vars
Look at the GEM_HOME value
Performed an 'export' of that to GEM_PATH
I then reinstalled rake with 'gem install rake'
After that it worked as expected.

[Arlen]

Great! I was about to suggest you look at GEM_OPT, glad you found it before I sent you down the wrong rabbit-hole.